Beyond Yield: A treasurer's guide to cash as an asset class

Your cash has a return. It also has a risk.

Every other asset on the balance sheet is judged on both. Why should cash be any different?

Cash investment decisions are often driven by headline yield, credit ratings, and established policies. But these measures don't always tell the full story about the risks you're taking.

Beyond Yield challenges conventional approaches to institutional cash investing and introduces a practical framework for comparing investments on a risk-adjusted basis.

Discover how to look beyond headline returns, assess the risks behind them, and make more informed decisions about where to put cash to work.

By Kevin Cook, Co-founder & CEO, and James Skillen, CTO, TreasurySpring.

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What you’ll learn

• Same yield, different risk. Why cash investments offering similar returns can carry materially different credit risks.
• The limits of traditional treasury policies. Why choosing the highest yield within policy may not always deliver the best risk-adjusted outcome.‍
• A more rigorous way to assess credit risk. How Risk-Adjusted Value uses Basel's Standardised Approach to help compare the credit risk behind different cash investments.‍
• What the data reveals about risk and return. An analysis of deposits, money market funds, and Fixed-Term Funds that challenges conventional assumptions about the relationship between yield and credit risk.‍
• Putting the framework into practice. How treasury teams can apply a more disciplined approach to evaluating security, liquidity, diversification, and returns.